What Could’ve Been (Cap-and-Trade Edition)

Kevin Drum muses on what might have been had the media not “ignored” the candidates’ cap-and-trade plans (which reporters ignored, Drum guesses, because the candidates “weren’t attacking each other” on this issue). Per Drum:

Which is kinda too bad because it had all the elements of an epic battle. It really is true that Obama’s version of cap-and-trade amounts to a tax increase, and that would have been an issue right in McCain’s share-the-wealth-tax-raising-socialist wheelhouse. Conversely, McCain’s version of cap-and-trade really would have provided enormous windfall profits to coal plants and other carbon emitters (explanation here), and that would been right in Obama’s fat-cat-more-of-the-same wheelhouse. It could have been a great fight.

Instead we got Joe the Plumber and Obama the terrorist lover. Oh well. We’ll do better next time, right?

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